This was a slower week than usual for me on eBay, but that’s to be expected this time of year. There will be weeks where the buyers just aren’t buying no matter how many offers you send or new listings you create.
But there are other elements to this life beyond your net sales. I continued to purge and organize my listed trading card inventory and boxes of bulk cards to sell on consignment. I have cleared 3/4 of one of my 4 shelf units over the last few months. I am getting some old death pile items listed, and my consignment sales have become a nice, secondary income stream which has settled around $2000 profit per month for the last two months. It will be interesting to see if that remains steady or improves. I have been sending 90% of the new inventory I purchase through online auctions directly to consignment, and I expect that to continue going forward.
Changing my process flow for new inventory has freed me up to think more about how I want to spend my time and what other changes I can make. I have some other ideas for the next few months and beyond, and I really enjoy seeing them through from concept to actually affecting my business and day to day life. It makes this exciting even on slow weeks.
For now, I have returned to one of my earliest scavenging loves, library sales. I have hit four different sales in the last five weeks and spent about $200 total (probably less) to bring home dozens of interesting books, magazines, CDs and DVDs. It’s been a few years since I’ve regularly listed these sorts of items and it will be a fun project for the next rainy weekend(s) or when the weather gets colder.
I have two Too Good To Go pickups scheduled this evening from local businesses (one bakery and one deli) and will report back tomorrow with the goods. I spent a lot of time cooking this weekend (another benefit of this life), but I don’t have any scavenging plans for this week and Too Good To Go kind of scratches that itch for me.
6/5/2022 – 6/11/2022
Total items in store: 2128 (up from 2118 last week)
Items sold: 41 (30 via best offer, 4 via seller initiated offer, 20 via promoted listings)
Gross sales: $1901.38 (down 37% from one year ago)
Net sales: 1298.60 (down 39% from one year ago)
Average sales price: $46.38 (up 7% from one year ago)
Time spent searching through online auction listings for new trading cards inventory: 13 hours (down from 13.5 hours last week)
Highest price sold (net): $82.94 — Malik Monk Panini Instant autograph rookie #2/5
This card was part of a large sale to one buyer last Saturday and Sunday, 20+ items which totaled nearly $1000 (gross) and $500 (net). I rarely get these types of high roller buyers, more often it’s 2 or 3 $20 items in one purchase, but build up your inventory enough and sometimes the unexpected will happen. Very exciting and nerve-wracking. I couldn’t resist checking the tracking all week long.
It will be interesting to see if the buyer returns to my store again. I really went the extra mile with packaging and adding some bonus freebies that I thought they’d enjoy based on which cards they purchased. I’d love to know their story, especially what their card budget is and which cards are “investments” versus their collection. Some buyers love to share this information, and it feeds my own enthusiasm for buying and selling all these cards.
Lowest price sold (net): $11.03 — Jamal Agnew Panini Contenders rookie ticket autograph
These are always my favorite kinds of sales — $1.63 into $11.03. An autographed rookie card of the Jacksonville Jaguars return specialist and backup wide receiver, plucked from one auction out of 20,000 listed every week by one of the biggest card sellers.
Sometimes card values go up and down for logical reasons, usually the player improves or becomes more popular. But these types of sales aren’t like that. This was knowing why something has value (the player is not a star performer but a fan favorite and only has cards in a few sets), and just wait for the right buyer (no surprise, located in Florida). Bargains like this are always out there. Our job is to go and find them.
Source link
